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What is CoorsTek?

Posted
Tuesday, May 22, 2018 2:19 pm

CoorsTek is a manufacturing company privately owned by the Coors family, now in its fifth generation of family members holding positions such as CEO and other roles. Headquartered in Golden and employing more than 1,200 people locally, it now has more than 50 locations worldwide.

Today, CoorsTek produces ceramic components for industry, including automotive, semiconductor, defense and aerospace, energy and more. Its scientific and analytical labware is produced in a variety of ceramic materials ranging from standard porcelain to high-purity alumina and zirconia.

The company got its start as the Herold China and Pottery Company in December 1910 when Adolph Coors provided John Herold a building in Golden to start the company.

Adolph Coors Jr. took over the management of the company circa 1915. The company began filling the need for domestic labware in World War I. Some other ways the company has served the military includes producing ceramic armor components deployed for military applications beginning in 1966 and manufacturing ceramic tiles for the U.S. Army Stryker armor combat vehicle in the 2000s.

By the 1920s, the company was renamed the Coors Porcelain Company. It continued to grow in the 1930s, and in that decade, the old beehive kilns were replaced with new circular and tunnel kilns. Coors Porcelain acquired its chemical and scientific porcelain business in the 1940s.

Coors Porcelain discontinued its dinnerware and cookware consumer lines, first produced in the 1920s, during World War II to concentrate on chemical and scientific porcelain products. The company never revived the dinnerware lines but did start making vases, ashtrays and mugs. In 1989, it began to manufacture tough zirconia-based ceramic products such as golf putters and drivers, golf cleats, shirt buttons and knife sharpeners.

In 1955, Coors Porcelain started its first metallizing division for the electronics industry, and in 1959, developed the recyclable aluminum beverage can. In 1965, Coors Porcelain contracted with IBM to produce ceramic substrates used in mainframe computers.

Coors Porcelain became Coors Ceramics in 1986 and in 2000, Coors Ceramics changed its name to CoorsTek.

In 2013, it introduced aluminum nitride substrates for the rapidly growing LED and power electronics markets.

CoorsTek Medical was launched in 2014.

In 2016, CoorsTek invested $120 million to create a new Center for Advanced Materials, located at 4455 Table Mountain Drive in Golden. The facility combines a state-of-the-art research and development hub, a sophisticated analytical laboratory and a world-class materials manufacturing facility.

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